Swiss banks erased records of Jewish accounts

Swiss banks systematically hid and destroyed records of bank accounts from the Holocaust period, thus preventing their owners from claiming their money and assets, according to a lawsuit set to be filed next week.

During the Nazi regime in 1933-1945 some 7 million bank accounts were created in Switzerland. An estimated 60,000 of them were opened by Jews in a bid to salvage their property from the Nazis, with the intention of reclaiming it after World War II.

Years later it emerged that the records of some 3 million of these accounts had disappeared and been destroyed....